Author Malaika Cheney-Coker takes readers on a spiritual journey in her new book “Creature of Air and Still Water.” Set in Freetown, Sierra Leone, and Atlanta, Cheney-Coker explores themes of family, grief, sacrifice, and forgiveness while uncovering what it is to find peace in one’s own personal swamp. The Atlanta Voice talked with Cheney-Coker about her diverse cultural upbringing and how those experiences are reflected in her new book.
“Creature of Air and Still Water” will be available on April 8, 2025.
The Atlanta Voice: If someone were to ask you where your love of writing began, how would that story start?
Malaika Cheney-Coker: “Well, I have a writer father. My father is a poet and a novelist, so I was aware of and exposed to literature from an early age. I have written about this in a blog, but I remember being four years old and realizing I wanted to be a writer. I would say that was probably, in part, due to osmosis. You want to emulate your parents, but also the environment I grew up in — both my parents having literature backgrounds — there was a love of reading and books in the household. Beyond that being just something imbibed, I felt this instinctive interest in it which persisted.”
AV: Speaking about your childhood, you were born in Nigeria, which has a place in my heart because I am Nigerian. You also lived in the Philippines and Sierra Leone, which is the backdrop of your book “Creature of Air and Still Water.” How did those early exposures to different cultures influence how you view the world?
MC: “My mother was from the Philippines, my father was from Sierra Leone, and I was born in Nigeria because my father was working there. Like literature and books were part of my background, multiculturalism was also baked into my upbringing. Whereas there are some people — including on both sides of my family — for whom all they’ve ever known is to be part of one racial identity, in one community of sorts, or one country, I’ve always had the international hybrid or global citizen background. Even when I haven’t consciously reflected on how that makes you different, I would say it gives you, in some ways, an insider-outsider perspective on cultural elements that maybe if you haven’t had one foot out of a culture and in another culture, you wouldn’t have as much of that perspective. Also, I do gravitate toward people who likewise have that appreciation for internationalism or love to learn about other cultures.”
AV: That also plays into your other career as well. Can you talk about your work in international development?
MC: “Because I grew up mainly in Sierra Leone, which is a beautiful and also poor country, I was well aware of the international development industry, which comprises many things, including nonprofits or NGOs that do what’s called development work in other countries where they essentially implement social programs to help local populations with practical issues like economic empowerment, health care, education and so on.
“So, I decided to pursue international development proper and social change as a second career, which, let’s be honest if you’re a writer, which is not necessarily, for the most part, a bread-earning career, that international development career became my primary career. It was a fascinating career path, and I have been in that all my professional life for other organizations, some large, prominent international nonprofits. And now am the founder and principal of my own consulting firm, Ignited Word, where we work with social impact organizations overseas and in the US.”
AV: Shifting back toward the book, it explores these themes of understanding your spiritual journey — I love the idea of “the thing — navigating grief, family, the power of forgiveness and childhood trauma with a backdrop of Atlanta and Freetown, Sierra Leone. How much of the story reflects your childhood?
MC: “A lot of the setting, the world-building, and the cultural components of the novel very much reflect my childhood because, as you’ve mentioned, it’s primarily set in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone. Most of the characters are Sierra Leonean, so I had to draw from my childhood to create details about day-to-day life in Sierra Leone and, even more significantly, in characterization.
“As you sketch out characters and develop them and try to flesh them out well, you have to bring that cultural element of personality, which is also heavily affected by culture. So, how would this person act in a way consistent with a Sierra Leonean person of this age and gender and so on and so forth? And so I had to draw heavily from my childhood and subsequent trips to Sierra Leone. And also, even living here within the Sierra Leonean diaspora, my awareness of Sierra Leonean culture.”
AV: Can you talk a little bit about the journey you take your characters Seth and Evelyn on?
MC: “Sure. The publisher has consistently said that he loves that they’re both unreliable narrators. We find that Seth is indeed grappling with something which, at the outset, he doesn’t know what’s going on. His psychiatrist thinks he knows what’s going on. He’s like, ‘Yeah, this is a classic case of bipolar II disorder. And Seth thinks it’s something different, and it’s very frightening.
“So, that’s the start of Seth’s journey of being a successful young immigrant who has achieved the American dream and then finds it at risk. And then his choices are, do I follow my gut and go back to Sierra Leone and try to get to the bottom of what’s going on here because I feel like that’s the only place I can find answers? Do I abandon everything that I’ve built over the years, or do I take the medications and submit to the regimen that’s been prescribed and do the sensible thing, right?
“Evelyn is Seth’s mother. She’s not a very sympathetic character. She and Seth have a not-very-warm relationship, let’s say. But she does have things that she wants. She has never really processed the death of her favorite son. She has that in her journey to deal with — to choose to deal with that grief or to choose not to, and that choice also affects the one thing that she thinks she can bring to the world, which is that she has a superb memory. Whether or not she’s able to grow as a person and grow past some of the things that have been limitations in her relationships and her character is the journey that she’s on; readers will see to what extent she’s she’s able to achieve that.”
AV: Going into writing this, was there an intent to tackle the complexities of mental health, especially within the diaspora?
MC: “I did not set out to write a novel focused on mental health at all. I was focused on the fascinating question of what would cause somebody to abandon everything. I was fascinated by these outlier cases, which don’t quite fit the box of this diagnosis or this common condition. And so then, what box does it fit, if any? And somehow, the topic emerged that there’s a spiritual emergency.
“It’s a known phenomenon that most of us have never heard about, but maybe more traditional cultures had more experience dealing with it and knew when it surfaced, what to do with it. Essentially, following the question led me down this path, which interfaced quite a bit with mental health. But I didn’t initially intend to write a book focused on mental health.”
AV: Very interesting. And a portion of the proceeds are going to Friends of Refugees. Can you talk about the nonprofit and why you decided that a portion of the proceeds of this book will go toward the organization?
MC: “Friends of Refugees is a Clarkston-based nonprofit. As anybody in Atlanta would know, Clarkston is a major refugee resettlement area for the country. Just as the name suggests, they’re there to provide practical services to refugees from all over the world, essentially helping people in a strange land find their footing and connect and build community. I love that about their mission and that it’s an organization close to where I live.
AV: When people turn the last page on “Creature of Air and Still Water,” what do you want them to take away from the book?
MC: “I would love it if they think about it for days afterward. What those initial thoughts are? It’s down to the reader. This is where magic happens, where the writer has no idea what message, of the several messages embedded in the novel, the reader will take away.
“Rather than say I would love them to take this message away, I would love for the reader to take a message that connects most strongly with that reader’s experience but also helps them think about the world differently. And even after they’ve taken away one message, they still keep thinking about the book. Maybe another message even surfaces, and even another message surfaces over the next few days, or even longer.”